The Sacred Blade

Chapter 1- The Beginning

I never met my father. Mama said he left somewhere only he knew before she even found out I was going to be born. All I have of him, all that I could use to imagine what he looks like, is what Mama has told me.

She doesn't talk about him often, but when she does, it's vague and unhelpful. I understand it's hard for her, but I still wish I knew more. Mama had only really said I have his gray eyes, which turn cold like ice whenever I get stubborn or determined, just like him. The rest of me- my boring black hair, splashes of freckles, and lanky frame, came from her.

I spend my spare time drawing what I think he looks like, etching charcoal grays and wisps of black across my old sketchbook. Some days he's a famous actor, straight off the set of an award-winning television series, with a million-dollar smile and paparazzi cameras flashing a bright halo behind him. Other days, he's a father who just came home from work at the office, with a tired grin but always happy to see me, planting a loving kiss on my cheek and patting me on the head. My sketchbook is filled with drawings of this mystery man, every single page with a different career, different personality, and a different kind of father who went to a mysterious place for a mysterious reason. It's my most valuable possession. Nothing can replace it.

As I sat in my science class on an unremarkable Thursday, I worked on my next composition within my beloved sketchbook. This time around, he became a superhero who's come to rescue me from my teacher's monotonous lesson. She's one of those teachers whose disinterested tone and mid-range voice just makes you zone out staring at your shoes, contemplating what the tips of your shoelaces are called, and want to fall asleep (I'm sure you can all relate). I sketched a cape, dragging my charcoal pencil across the paper, curving the line so that it floated heroically in the air. The dark dust from my charcoal pencil coated the side of my hand, and my eyes were firmly focused on my paper. Suddenly, a high-pitched voice breaks my focus.

"Mrs. Meyers, Camellia's drawing!" sneered Jessica Pierson, the snottiest (in all reality, I could fill an entire library with reasons why I didn't like her) person in Westview High School, the only high school in Coldwater Creek. I sadly had no other options for formal schooling, which I contemplated approximately every 10 minutes at Westview. Jessica Pierson is a vicious girl whose perfect red curls and manicured cat-like nails will make you think twice about why you exist in her presence. She loves to make people like me feel miserable, sorry for causing her any sort of irritation, and somehow brainwashes them into doing whatever it takes to appease her. Her goal is to become every teacher's favorite so that she's practically immune to getting in trouble, while still maintaining her sticky spider-web of control and power over the other mindless students in every class. Jessica is, as much as I hate to admit- smart. Smart, but mean. A bad combination, in my case.

"Ms. Dahlgren, if I could see that book, please?"

Mrs. Meyers gave me the look only grumpy old ladies can give: raised eyebrows, pursed lips, and eyes saying I-can-do-much worse-to-you-if-I-want-to and I know that I can't refuse.

I reluctantly handed over my entire soul and returned to my seat. Meanwhile, a sea of snickering students erupted all around me.

"You can come to retrieve it after class is over. Next time, I won't be so kind," stated Mrs. Meyers through her tight lips with her lemon-pinched face, not impressed that I disrupted her lecture and lesson.

I snorted quietly to myself. As if she were ever kind in the first place? She's like a wrinkly ancient dinosaur with hunger pains. Overall, she's the kind of person you wouldn't go to their house to trick-or-treat. I slumped in my chair, brooding but also panicking over the loss of my cherished sketchbook, when for some odd reason, Mrs. Meyers tripped on her way to her desk, making her striped, green dress (a hideous choice, as it clashed hard with her bright orange high heels) fly upwards as her legs slipped out and up from underneath her and displayed a pair of international boy band underwear. The whole class erupted in laughter as a flustered Mrs. Meyers hurried back onto her gnarled, skinny feet and frantically straightened out her dress.